Puppy Love by Susan Lynn Zenker (2013 words)

Puppy Love

by Susan Lynn Zenker

“Hey, Clark. I’m here to pick up Mitzie.” I always tease Josh and call him “Clark” because the black frames he wears give him a Clark Kent look.

“Oh, hi, Brianna.” He stands up from his desk. Hands in his pockets, eyes on the floor. On the counter sits a bouquet of dying sunflowers, I Love My Pet stickers, and a planter in the shape of an owl. Every seat in the waiting room is taken.

 I’m suddenly aware Clark is staring at me like my hair’s blue. “You’re acting weird. No gum today?” He never fails to offer me some whenever I’ve come in with one of my rescued animals.

“Oh, yeah, sure.” He sounds breathy and shifts from one foot to the other. Fishes for a pack of Juicy Fruit in his desk drawer as if he’s never offered me any before.

On a bulletin board behind the reception area are photos of hundreds of dog and cat patients. Normally, I’d stroll over there to pass away the time. Today, I’m too excited. I only want to see my Mitzie.

The door to Exam Room II opens. “Miss Salvino? Can we see you inside?”

“Hold that gum, Clark.” 

I jump up and in seconds I’m in their back room. No Mitzie anywhere. “What’s going on?”

 Clark sneaks in with me. I hear the door click shut behind us.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Salvino. I have to tell you, we lost her.”

“She got out?”

The vet lays a hand on my forearm. “No, hon, I’m sorry, but she didn’t make it.”

“Wait. What do you mean?” I stand. I circle. “She died?”

“We’re so sorry.”

I look at the vet. I look at Clark. “How can that be?

How? No! I thought spaying’s routine.”

The vet places an arm around my shoulders. “With surgery, there’s always a risk. And you know we give all the animals that come to us the absolute best care. But shepherds, they’re…tricky sometimes.”

“Tricky? No dogs die when they’re spayed, do they?” 

“It’s a one in ten thousand chance.”

I’m pacing now, confused, trying to understand. I’m going home without Mitzie? It’s not supposed to be like this. Zillions of dogs are spayed every day. Why Mitzie? Why Grandpa Luke’s dog? He left me this dog to protect and love.

The room is quiet except for the blue beagle clock with its ticking tail.

I blurt out, “Whoever operated killed her.”

Clark says, “No, Briana. She just died.”

“What do you mean ‘she just died?’ That’s it? Just like that?”

“We’re very sorry.”

“But I, I want my Mitzie.” My chest feels clenched like a fist.

“We’re so sorry. You can stay back here as long as you like. As long as you need. Excuse me.” Dr. Mosley glances at Clark, then exits through the back hall.

Damn the Mosley Animal Hospital! I cry for what seems like forever. I reach for some rough brown paper towels the doctors use when they wash their hands.

“Here.” Clark leans over me and passes me a box of tissues. I turn toward him and note his brow is furrowed; his eyebrows, raised and pulled together.

I wipe my nose. Clark’s still leaning over me and I’m wondering why. Tears roll down my cheeks and into my collar. I yank open the door to the waiting room, where I give two pug owners and a girl with a beagle my nastiest face. “Don’t go in there. They kill things in there.”

I whiz past the counter and shove all the ASPCA pamphlets to the floor. I whack the vet’s sign that says Greyhounds are loved here and flip it over. As I open the front door, its window panes decorated with gecko gel figures, I shout over my shoulder, “She killed my dog.”

* * *

I spend the night bawling and wake up in my clothes. I’m pacing Grandpa’s bedroom, trying to focus on Mom’s efforts to pack his books and shoes. “I’m not paying the vet’s bill.”

“Of course not.”

“Will they dump her in a trash can? I never even asked.” Tears start rolling again.

“Oh, sweetie.” Strange how Mom knows exactly when to pull me into a hug. “We could ask for a box of her ashes?”

“All I wanted was to give Mitzie a good home. What would Grandpa think of me now that I took her somewhere to be killed?”

“Hon, you did what all good pet owners should. No one could predict this. And I’m sure Grandpa wouldn’t want you to be so sad.”

 I think of the watercolor painting which hangs in the entrance to the vet’s office—a black border collie alongside a yellow Lab. The heads of the two dogs are strangely looking in opposite directions. The artist painted them facing away from each other for a reason. Old and New? Past and Present? Or is it about letting go?

“But, Mom, of all the dogs we’ve rescued, how come I couldn’t rescue Mitzie?”

“Oh, honey.” Mom’s arm around me tightens and more tears flow.

“I miss Grandpa Luke. And I miss his dog.”

* * *

The following Friday around 6 pm, a knock at the door interrupts the evening news. Clark Kent’s standing there, bear-hugging a cardboard box. “Can I come in?”

“How do you know where I live?” I’m curious now.

He shrugs. “Just do.”

He looks over his glasses for a second, kind of cute.

Must have looked me up in the vet’s records. I was hoping someday he would.

He has heavy eyebrows and smells of something spicy and clean. Just then the box he’s holding wobbles in his hands. Something inside whimpers.

“Come outside, then. I want to show you something.”

We move to the porch and take a seat on a painted bench. A cool breeze blows a scent of lavender our way. Clark pries open the flaps. A puppy nudges its head upward, yaps. A black and brown shepherd with perfectly perky ears and a thin white stripe down its nose. I take the warm little fuzzy ball of a pup into my hands and lift it up, looking. It’s a girl. She’s light as a feather and cuter than cute. She’s all wiggly and frisky and panting. And really tiny compared to Mitzie.

“I never pictured you picking up strays.”

“Ah, but you have pictured me?” He runs his hand through his spiked hair like a magazine model who’s done it a million times. He takes the pup and holds her up under his chin, rubbing her fur against his cheek.

I smile and so does he.

 “You have nice teeth. You ought to show them more often.”

 That line would sound super corny coming from any other guy. With Josh, I know he means it. My face feels hot, so I look down at my sandals.

  “She’s weaned, but you’ll have to house train her. Which reminds me. I brought you some of those training papers till the dog learns to scratch your door.”

He sets the pup in my lap, jogs to his car and retrieves a shopping bag, which he sets on the bench between us. “Here’s pet food, just a small bag of it, to get you going. A dog dish. Another for water. A collar. A ball, ‘cause every dog’s gotta have a ball, some more toys….”

Now I’m feeling all warm inside. “You brought all this for me? Why?”

“You were sad.”

“And angry,” I add.

“Sad and angry.” His eyes stare into mine.

The pup licks my face. I chuckle because it tickles.

“You’re cheering up already. If only I could cheer my sister that easy.”

“And you can’t… because?”

“She…lost a baby. Would have been my nephew. It was after eight months of… well, you know.”

“At eight months pregnant? That’s so sad.”

“She moved in with us after that. She’s still in bed at 11:00, mornings. Afternoons, she mopes around in pajamas. My cousin says to let her be. But I can’t. I have to do something. I’ve tried flowers. Funny movies. I make her breakfast. Bring her Starbuck’s.”

“That’s sweet.” His eyes get watery and so do mine. I want to reach up and touch his face and tell him, “What a wonderful brother you are.”

“That day you lost Mitzie? The baby, well, it’d just happened the week before.”

“Wow, that recent? No wonder she’s sad.” Suddenly, I’m telling him, “I lost my grandfather six weeks ago.”

“That sucks.”

We sit quiet for a moment, sharing our grief.

“Mitzie was Grandpa’s dog,” I finally say, running my hand down the pup’s tail.

“You told me. When you brought her in.”

The pup’s standing on her hind legs, licking my chin. “Down, girl.”

“Girl needs a name.”

“How about Gladys? No wait, Daisy.”

“I like Daisy.”

I hand Daisy back to Josh. “I can’t take her.”

“No, really. She’s a gift. If you want her.”

A flush rises to my cheeks. I scratch behind her ears a bit. “I do. She’s beautiful.”

“My cousin says, when the time comes, she’ll spay her for free.”

“Your cousin?”

“Yeah, you know, Dr. Mosley.”

“How come I never knew, after all this time, Amanda Mosley’s your cousin?”

“Never came up?”

I think about that day I dropped Mitzie off for her surgery. It was the day I realized I’m crushing on Josh. A cocker spaniel in the waiting room had chosen that moment to pee. Josh got up, retrieved a mop and a bucket full of a bleachy-smelling substance from a utility closet —like nothing. He mopped the pee, just like that, and patted the spaniel’s head. “Good dog,” Josh said. 

The owner was all, “Sorry, sorry. We just took him to the street, just before we came in.” But Josh, he was all, “No sweat. Dogs do that,” like he wanted to set the owner at ease. Then Josh grabbed some dog cookies from a bowl on the counter and handed them to the elderly woman to give to their pet. That roused a huge toothy grin from the elderly guy beside her. Josh was just being Josh.

He likes animals and old people. He’s always nice.

“My cousin hasn’t stopped talking about Mitzie,” he says, drawing me back to the present.”

“The pup’s from your cousin?”

“No, my decision totally. I wanted to give you something. You’ve always been so passionate about your dogs. Oh, I brought this, too. A magnet with our telephone number.”

 I hold out my hand for the rubber magnet in the shape of a bone.

“You can always find me in the office on Saturdays.”

“I know.” I don’t tell him I know the vet’s number by heart. I look into Josh’s chocolate puppy eyes and see all of the possibilities. Not old, but new. Not past, but present.

“You could call at closing, right at five.…You’d catch me.”

“I could.” I stroke the dog’s smooth fur.

“And, if you want, we could hang. Take Daisy for a walk?” He pats the dog’s little head. “I know a lot of dog parks…. And my cousin Amanda? She tried to save Mitzie. She really tried.”

“I guess I know that. I was just—"

“—Upset.”

“I guess I should go apologize.”

“How about this Saturday at 4:45? With Daisy? Fifteen minutes for an apology, then we go on that walk.”

“At 4:45 it is.”

“And one more thing. You forgot this the other day.” He takes a pack of gum out of his pocket and offers me a stick.

I take a piece. “So I did.” A little tingle crawls slowly up my chest.

“As long as we’re going for walks, the name’s not Clark. It’s Josh.”

I roll my eyes, pointing to his name tag. “I know your name, Josh.”

“Cool. So, what’s with the ‘Clark’ nickname every time?”

“Kind of hard to explain.”

“Try me.” His smile’s as wide as the Atlantic, and my heart’s beating as fast as its rushing waves.